Seb's Open Research
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Friday, September 12, 2003
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Who drives innovation in scholarly communication?
Henk writes,
Are technological innovations in the area of scholarly communication answers to problems posed by the participants (the users; the scholars; the researchers; the research administrators) in this process? In fact, there is a very clear, and very simple, answer to this question. In case you wonder, it is NO. [...]
So far our researchers often like the innovations and show an interest, at least a little, but they have not endorsed them. They have not taken the lead and have not changed the technology-driven causality into a demand driven one.
Now, many have tried to change this. They want to reach out to scholars, ask them what they want, and then try to steer the developments. But more often than not, asking (senior) researchers or the research administrators leads to nothing. One finds that their primary demands are already being met by the current system of (commercial) publishing.
Demand for change should not be expected come from senior researchers and research administrators, as these are the people who have the strongest investment in the current system and are least likely to want to undermine it. The current system works, for them. But if instead you look at researchers who just don't have enough money to play the game; at researchers who live in countries where the cost of subscribing to a journal is roughly equivalent to a faculty member's annual salary; or at researchers with ideas or results that are difficult to get published, you'll see demand for new modes of dissemination of research.
For instance, I think the use of blogs in research qualifies as an important innovation in scholarly communication; its emergence is clearly demand-driven. With a few exceptions, the last ones to start blogs will be senior researchers.
 11:00:22 AM
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Thursday, September 11, 2003
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The algebra of feeds, or the amateurization of RSS bricolage
Recent talk about RSS feed splicing and the ineluctable need for filtering open feeds got me thinking about the variety of operations one might want to perform on feeds.
Taking a cue from the operations of set theory we could for instance define the following:
- Splicing (union): I want feed C to be the result of merging feeds A and B.
- Intersecting: Given primary feeds A and B, I want feed C to consist of all items that appear in both primary feeds.
- Subtracting (difference): I want to remove from feed A all of the items that also appear in feed B. Put the result in feed C.
- Splitting (subset selection): I want to split feed D into feeds D1 and D2, according to some binary selection criterion on items.
The ultimate RSS bricolage tool would give users an interface to derive feeds from other feeds using the above operations, and spit out a working URL for the resulting feed.
I'm not sure how all of it would work, or even if all of it can work in practice. I'm completely abstracting out technical considerations here. While I'm not sure how large the space of useful applications of this could be, here are a couple example uses:
- Splicing: All of the posts on the Many-to-many blog have to do with social software, so it would make sense to send its posts over to the social software channel. Now, since the blogging tool we use for that blog doesn't support TrackBack, it can't automatically ping the Topic Exchange. A workaround would be to merge both channels into a new one. In general, this would enable any combination of category feeds from various sources to be constructed very simply. A feed splicer can also serve as a poor man's aggregator.
- Intersecting: Say I want to subscribe to all of Mark's posts that make the Blogdex Top 40; I'd just have to intersect the feeds. Or I could filter a Waypath keyword search feed in the same manner.
- Subtracting: I'm interested in some topic that has an open channel, but find the items by one particular author uninteresting. (This is equivalent to the killfile idea from good ol' USENET.) Subtraction could also be used if you don't want to see your own contributions to a feed.
- Splitting: One might want to manually split a feed into "good" and "bad" subfeeds according to a subjective assessment of quality or relevance, or automatically split according to language, author, etc. Note that this one doesn't qualify as an example of pure feed algebra, as it involves inputs beyond feeds.
This post appears on channels: topics in weblogs, syndication
10:27:17 PM
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Recall
Barbara Quint describes the new search engine at the Internet Archive in the September 8 issue of Information Today. [Open Access News]
 The recall engine is quite neat; it generates graphs à la Buzz Maker, but on a longer timescale (the archive started back in 1996). Not sure how accurate these graphs are, though. To the right you can see the graph for the query "all your base".
 And this one on the left is the result for the query "weblog". Makes sense. But the additional graphs of (I presume) co-occurent terms that appear on the results pages seem a little odd. Then again, I haven't been eyeing the net constantly since 1996, as these guys' robots have.
It's also interesting to search for the names of folks who have been active on the Net for a while and see the associated topics that show up in the right sidebar; try it.
The Information Today article ends thus:
The Internet Archive relies on corporate donations, government and foundation grants, and donations from generous and talented individuals. It represents one of the great success stories on the Love side of the “For Love or Money” saga of the Internet. With the addition of an effective search engine, it also represents a site that serious Internet searchers should carry high on their lists of Favorites or Bookmarks.
9:36:37 PM
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Wednesday, September 10, 2003
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LiveJournal communities as connectors
Nice piece of advice from Clay that really shouldn't be private. Are there any pieces that describe the dynamics of LiveJournal communities out there somewhere? Or will I also have to get a LiveJournal account?
Friendster notes. [...] (Private to J. Abrams: Get a Livejournal account, and watch how they handle interests and communities, then note that communities are first-class members of the system. Keep at it til it makes sense to you, because LiveJournal figured out how to create connectivity between people and ideas first, and, as far as I can tell, best.) [Corante: Social Software]
5:00:35 PM
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Simulating leadership
Simulations and the Learning Revolution: An Interview with Clark Aldrich (via Stephen). Reading this reminded me of the fun I had playing the highly original Executive Suite many years ago. I would sometimes play the game in reverse, trying to get myself kicked out of the corporation as efficiently as possible.
There's also a link to a sample session of a leadership game (pdf) designed by Aldrich. The notion of simulating interpersonal behavior strikes me as quite ambitious. You play a boss and your goal is to direct an employee's behavior towards a specific course of action, given that he himself has something else in mind; interestingly, changing your own agenda doesn't appear to be a possible path through the session.
4:30:04 PM
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Making ringtones meaningful
More brilliant stuff from Don. Less expensive than printing t-shirts.
Virtual Protest Ring Tone. [...] If I was organizing it, I would create a Virtual Protest Ring Tone, something that say something about the protest, a jingle or a chant, whatever. Let people show their support by downloading it and installing it on their cellphones so people around the supporters will notice and ask
Why does your phone say STOP RFID instead of ringing?
Then every phonecall received turns into an opportunity to further the cause. Charge for the ring tone if the cause is worthy and in need of money. For TextAmerica, it would generate publicity and encourage meaningful use of ring tones.
An obvious variation is "Howard Dean for President" ring tone. Oh, well. I am sure Howard has plenty of helpers to tell him about it. [Don Park's Daily Habit]
1:54:37 PM
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9/12
Tom Munnecke does mind-blowing stuff. His overall approach is to take opportunities, rather than problems, as starting points for action. I sure wish I saw more of that. Here's his latest initiative.
September12.org and FlashMobs. September12.org is a wiki set up by Tom Munnecke to coordinate actions that will "...create a cascade of positive emotions on the 12th." The thing that caught my eye is that they are attempting to press the idea of FlashMobs into service for a larger cause.
As I predicted a while ago "If the [mob] pattern catches on, it's plainly going to be adopted by both pranksters and political activists." This set of FlashMobs may end up with both patterns. Because September12.org is simultaneously politically active and politically mute -- it references September 11th, but without noting that it was the opening attack in at least one current conflict -- it may generate some sort of counter-protest. (I can hardly imagine the warbloggers setting up a FlashMob, but who knows...) Should be interesting to watch, anyway. [Corante: Social Software]
12:42:10 PM
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Pooling resources
Blogging across the curriculum.
 This is a new (at least to me) resource site on the use of Weblogs in teaching. [Seblogging News]
Resource sites like this are popping up more and more frequently. Each offers a different view of the proverbial elephant that is edublogging. I feel the community is now reaching critical mass, where coverage seems to overlap enough that consensus emerges, and duplication of effort begins to be noticeable.
Here's a quick sketch of an idea. It doesn't make sense to maintain dozens of separate lists of resources. Maybe we ought to build a pool of primarily public domain or Creative Commons-licensed chunks of content. Some might have a single editor, others might not.
Now think transclusion (hi Chris!). The ability to recombine these chunks might allow us to more easily build the ultimate resource. Or build any number of guides that compete for the crown or are geared towards different sets of people. I'm thinking about a web-based distributed collaboration process that embraces the spectrum between the strict individual ownership and control of weblogs and the free-for-all of wikis.
Dave has been trying to push distributed directories in that general direction, but I'm not sure that's exactly what I want. For one thing, when I browse OPML directories I feel like I'm walking around a skeleton. I'd like to have a little meat around the bones. (Sorry if the metaphor feels obscure - I'm not sure how to be more precise at this point.)
Surely something else like this has been proposed or done somewhere? Let me know.
12:27:48 PM
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Allowing for uncertainty in the classroom
Sebastian offers an interesting questioning on how the constraints of formal education settings make it difficult to fruitfully integrate personal webpublishing in student activities. Time is one of the key issues.
From my experience it does seem hard to reap the benefits of personal webpublishing within a short timeframe. It easily took me four months to integrate myself into the network - and I spent a lot of that time in the blogosphere, something a time-pressured student is unlikely to be able or willing do.
How to seed a learning environment that allows for evolutionary growth?.
[...] The way we interpret a problem has many implications on how we will go about solving it. It seems obvious that we have to get away from the mere delivery of neatly packaged, gift-wrapped recipies and tool boxes if our teaching and learning activities are supposed to result in a personally relevant construction of applicable skills and concepts.
I think that personal Webpublishing can play a vital role in transforming formal instructional settings in a way that allows for more uncertainty and evolutionary growth instead of micro-managed instructional events and interventions.
On of the most critical issues is, of course, time. In most course settings we try to simplify, condense, and accelerate processes and workflows that would often take more time to carry out under "normal" conditions. This creates a difficult environment for the integration of personal Webpublishing practices from my perspective.
Most people who kept personal Webpublishing projects (Weblogs, Wikis, etc.) running for months and years can report how certain qualities and benefits only emerged over time. They remember how they were basically talking to themselves at the beginning, how they found a small circle of like -minded authors, how this circle grew through chance meetings and focused search, how their readership grew and got more diverse, and so on.
Now, my question is: what parts of this evolutionary growth model could we hope to seed and watch unfold over the period of a semester? ... or will we never be able to touch the "real potential" of personal and collaborative Webpublishing in formal instructional settings because of the usual constraints on time, pace and structure? [Seblogging News]
11:19:18 AM
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Monday, September 08, 2003
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Uncitedness
Here's an interesting article from a decade ago with (perhaps)
surprising figures on the uncitedness
of academic articles by discipline. It seems disheartening to observe
that much published research doesn't seem to be of use to other
researchers - at least not enough to warrant a citation. I wonder how
things have evolved
since.
Research Papers: Who's Uncited Now?
Pendlebury found that physics
and chemistry had the lowest rates of uncitedness -- 36.7% and 38.8% of
the papers published in those disciplines, respectively, were not cited
at all in the 4 years following publication. [...] The figure for engineering, however, is above that average -- well above
it, in fact. More than 72% of all papers published in engineering had no
citations at all. Pendlebury says he is at a loss to explain this anomaly,
although he suggests that "sociological factors" might influence the way
engineering researchers cite each other's work.
[...] But scientists, social and otherwise, can take heart. Within the arts
and humanities (where admittedly citation is not so firmly entrenched),
uncitedness figures hit the ceiling. Consider, for example, theater (99.9%),
American literature (99.8%), architecture (99.6%), and religion (98.2%).
And, in one curious anomaly, articles in history (95.5%) and philosophy
(92.1%) were relatively uncited, while those in history and philosophy
of science (29.2%) were not.
This has also got me wondering about rates of unlinkedness for weblog
posts. Surely they are huge - though it should be kept in mind that in
the blogosphere the order is "publish, then filter" rather than the other way around.
4:14:07 PM
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Hopetoun Cottage
 Went across the bridge to Prince Edward Island this weekend and spent a night in Robert Paterson (whose blog has just moved here)'s Hopetoun Cottage
near the Hillsborough river.
This is a great setting. You enter the
property through a tunnel of big trees. You can take a stroll along the
river or around the field just beside the cottage, or you can climb up in the treehouse and
watch the eagles fly. A very pleasant place to relax in. And provincial
capital Charlottetown is nearby. Rob and his wife are charming, too.
Wish I'd stayed longer...
3:45:49 PM
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How's your workplace?
Quantifying Innovation:
- Challenge How challenged, how emotionally involved, and how committed am I to the work?
- Freedom How free am I to decide how to do my job?
- Idea Time Do we have time to think things through before having to act?
- Idea Support Do we have a few resources to give new ideas a try?
- Trust and Openness Do people feel safe in speaking their minds and openly offering different points of view?
- Playfulness and Humor How relaxed is our workplace -- is it OK to have fun?
- Conflicts To what degree do people engage in interpersonal conflict or "warfare?"
- Debates To what degree do people engage in lively debates about the issues?
- Risk-Taking Is it OK to fail when trying new things?
[via elearnspace blog]
Compare: Compliance vs. Creation.
3:43:12 PM
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Never forget you're unique. Just like everybody else.
Fame vs Fortune: Micropayments and Free Content. [Clay Shirky's Essays]
What a great title. If after reading this you still want to pick Fortune, you're a braver man than I.
Though each piece of written material
is unique, the universe of possible choices for any given reader is so
vast that uniqueness is not a rare quality. Thus any barrier to a
particular piece of content (even, as the usability people will tell
you, making it one click further away) will deflect at least some
potential readers.
This reminded me a bit of Stephen's Five Choices.
Content is not scarce. Attention is. These days you are lucky if more
than a handful of people want to look at your output. The reality is
that few of us are irreplaceable to a large number of people.
(Think the solution is to publish offline? Here's a semi-related factoid you may want to consider.)
3:25:13 PM
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Writing about Place
Chris Corrigan turned me on to the Ecotone wiki, which I find pretty interesting. Check out the Photographing Place topics for instance.
The Ecotone wiki is intended as a portal for those who are interested
in learning and writing about place. It came about as a meeting spot
for a number of webloggers who write extensively about place in their
own blogs and were wishing to work more collaboratively, as well as
raise awareness to this genre of weblogs. We hope that this wiki
complements our weblogs well: as Chris Corrigan puts it, blogs increase span and wikis increase depth.
I like that phrase, "wikis increase depth". This is what I've always
felt wikis were most useful for - characterizing issues and concepts
that run deep and have a long shelf-time, that are always current - as
opposed to weblogs, which I see more as a medium to alert us to what is
changing.
2:47:10 PM
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Copyleft
2006
Sebastien Paquet.
Last update:
4/22/2006; 12:13:19 PM.
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